Emerald Spire 40.0 - The Magelord's Sanctum
The group returned to the main hallway, asking Amara what room she would like to investigate first. Marin quickly jogged up to the second floor to assess the other rooms: he discovered two were empty and the other three were marked 'Commission for Abjuration', 'Commission for Transmutation', and 'Commission for Enchantment'. Given her options, Amara decided to open the experimental room first. Kormon pushed open the fine wooden door, revealing a very long, narrow room whose tiled floors and walls matched the main hall. A workbench was set up to the left of the entrance and the rest of the room was completely barren, save for a round greenish orb of crystal. It was maybe two feet across, pulsed gently with light, and was lying on the floor at the very far end of the room, leaning up against the wall like it had rolled there. With no interest at all in approaching the ominous ball, Marin gingerly moved to the desk: it was an arcanist's workbench, with all of its tools and supplies methodically arranged and pristine within its shelves. In the center of the table was a ream of papers, neatly marked with complicated notes and diagrams in the ancient Valparisan language. Passing them to Amara back out in the main hallway, she frowned as she rifled through them, commenting that at least these seemed to be arcanic work, as opposed to whatever it was that she had found in the lab upstairs. As Amara picked through the notes under Kormon's cautious eye, Marin decided to investigate another room. Knowing that abjuration tended to be focused on wards and protective spells, he determined that that would likely be the safest room to explore or at least the most likely to produce socially beneficial magics. The square room inside was also empty, still matching the decor; the workbench was on the far side of the room and a series of seven thin posts was arranged in a circle that filled most of the floorspace. The poles stuck up from the tiled floor: they were about the size of javelins or fence posts, made of gold, and were topped with pieces of the spire crystal. Deciding that it was not a good plan to enter the confines of the circle, Marin took a running start and dashed up the side of the wall, over the tops of the posts. Landing on the far side, he found a pristine desk and a folder of notes, though significantly fewer than the pile on the previous desk. Collecting them all up for Amara, he dashed up and over the posts again and rejoined the group. Meanwhile Amara had been picking through the experimental notes, which seemed to be an iterative log of trials regarding that orb. Every once and a while she saw author commentary beside the technical jargon, suggesting that this object was proving difficult to work with; the later the trials went on, the greater difficulty they were having, until eventually it got to the point where it was reacting unstably, wouldn't turn off, couldn't be disposed of and was killing anyone that got close to it, prompting the researcher to abandon the project for the time being. As Amara read these comments out loud, the others looked at her with pursed expressions. Wanting to test what would happen, Marin opened the door to the room and threw an apple: as it arced through the air towards the orb, it shriveled and rotted away, until it was dust by the time it hit the floor. Kormon and Marin gently yet insistently told Amara that this sort of thing was exactly why they were destroying the spire and that nothing good could possibly come from these notes. She made a weak argument but eventually sighed and passed the folder over to Kormon, who set it gingerly down by the door, unwilling to enter the room again. Marin then handed Amara the second set of notes. She found a small note stuck to the front, commenting that 'this version is 68% more efficient than Lirxana's design' and reminding someone to 'try and sell this to Zahira when Lirxana inevitably refuses to pay and admit this version is better.' It seemed to be some sort of extremely powerful antimagic array which would destroy any magic items or effects that entered the field. Marin tested his ioun stone with concern but found it intact: he had avoided the range of effect. The group returned to the room as Kormon was deeply interested in an artifact such as this. As he began to use his pickaxe to dig out the section of floor around one of the rods, Marin and Amara moved to check another room. The Enchantment room proved to be almost empty as well: the lone workbench stood at the far side as before and there appeared to be nothing else in the room. The desk had a few sheets of paper neatly stacked at its center as well as a shining longsword displayed nicely on a small stand. The sword looked deadly sharp and was clearly formed from the spire, or as Amara had gleaned from the notes: Conjurer's Crystal. Unfortunately, after a few sparse pages of what amounted to brainstorming, the writing ended with a short comment about how 'Varhiren had died' and how this project would be 'left until the incumbent decided what they wanted'. Apparently, this sword was meant to be enchanted but had been left incomplete. Regardless, Marin picked up the blade and returned to Kormon and Ismail, offering it to them. Kormon tested the blade by continuing to break up the stone floor with it and was rather satisfied with the results, glad to have a back-up for his pickaxe. He still passed it to Ismail to carry however, just so as to spread their resources around. By this point, Kormon had managed to loosen one of the poles. Very gingerly, he pulled it from the floor and took a few steps back with it, expanding the size of the circle. By tossing bits of rubble with Light cast on them into the new area, they found that the array still functioned. Heartened by this, Kormon placed the rod back before deciding that it was very important to loosen two more rods. The plan was to pull some of them up and then see what could be done with the magic-dispelling aura; perhaps it could be used on the spire itself. With Kormon still fixated on loosening rods, Marin and Amara moved on to another room. Next door was marked Transmutation; inside, the room was dominated by a huge statue of a fierce man in robes. He held a glaive and bits of green Conjurer's Crystal adorned his clothes, arms, neck and, oddly enough, were embedded in his forehead. Both Amara and Marin didn't need the notes from the far desk to guess that this statue would attack them. Feeling bold, Marin had Amara cloak him with Invisibility and he proceeded to sneak along the side of the wall to the desk, grab the papers, and sneak out. It seemed for a moment like the statue's gaze had move to follow the invisible adventurer but the golem remained stationary as he left and closed the door. Passing the notes to Amara, she found that this was indeed a particularly formidable golem; a note near the back scoffed that 'Karzoug had a fixation on weaponized statues of himself', but at least 'the Transmuter could always be counted on to pay'. After warning the other two men not to go next door, Amara and Marin went back downstairs to try out the other Transmutation room. It contained two round slabs of crystal on the floor, each only a few inches tall but several feet wide. They sat side-by-side, taking up much of the width of the room, and the workbench with its expected pile of papers sat beyond. Still invisible, Marin took a running jump across the narrowest point which brought him over the edges of both slabs; as he soared over them, he saw both of them flash. He landed with a curious sort of feeling. He mulled on it as he approached the desk: he felt shorter, broader, and it took him a second to notice, but he found he suddenly had a long beard. Picking up the papers with a grimace, he immediately turned and jumped over both tablets again. When he landed, a quick investigation found that he was no longer a dwarf, but rather a creature with sideburns and tusks, and apparently, was also a woman. Marin frowned and asked Amara to drop the Invisibility spell, revealing his changed appearance. She flustered and babbled at the change, but Marin was more-or-less unfazed; he had her skim over the notes and she deduced that it was as it seemed: one of the panels randomly transformed the user's race, while the other randomized their gender; both effects were permanent, though it could be used on the same person repeatedly without ill effect. A tacked-on note lamented that the creator was 'stuck with another worthless pet project', since 'Nussiak was dead and Karzoug had no interest in this'. They were going to be forced to wait until someone else came along, and they groused that they 'should have sold it to Varhiren when they had the chance.' Taking in that information, Marin nodded before shrugging with a grin and a 'welp!', jumping onto the panels again. He turned himself from a hobgoblin to a kobold, before jumping onto the second platform and turning into a male, he guessed; he was no student of kobold physiology but the sudden appearance of frills that he had lacked before was a hint. Jumping back to the race panel again, he became a rather masculine orc and took a moment to consider the form before continuing on. He told Amara to go and tell the others what they had discovered while he kept experimenting, just so that they wouldn't be taken aback. As Amara went to go find Ismail and Kormon, she saw them coming down the stairs towards her: Kormon had finished loosening three of the seven posts and was satisfied. Amara brokenly explained what they had found, as a grinning Marin stuck his head outside the door, now as a fluffy aelurian that Amara could not resist hugging. Kormon seemed quietly intrigued by this device and had them explain its functioning; he then followed Marin in to observe it in action. Marin took on form after form, becoming a gnoll, a hobbit and repeating several other races before finally becoming human once more. He investigated himself thoroughly, determining that he did look more or less like himself again though his masculine features seemed to be dramatized compared to before: likely an effect of the gender randomizer. Deciding to leave himself as is for the moment, Marin was confronted with thoughts about his self-identity that he hadn't considered near this fully before. Meanwhile, Kormon seemed tempted to try out the device. Considering what he had seen, and what he knew of Kormon, Marin offered a piece of warning: out of all of those trials, they had never seen any sort of half-race transformation, which meant that there was a reasonable likelihood that if Kormon stepped in, he might never be able to become a half-orc again. Considering that, Kormon nodded and resolved to remain as he was, confident in his own identity. The two men left, though Marin considered returning at a later time for further experimentation. There were only two doors left: necromancy and illusion. No one was eager to look in necromancy, but Ismail commented that he could look, as it was unlikely that anything in necromancy would hurt him and what he found might be beneficial. The others nodded at this and Ismail peeked into the room. With an exclamation of discomfort, he gestured for the others to look: three creatures were tied to the wall with short lengths of chain. They were undead, for certain, but their forearms and hands had been replaced with scythes carved of Conjurer's Crystal, and where their heads and necks should be, large growths of the green stone jutted out instead. The creatures were silent, save for the rattling and straining noises they made as they tirelessly pulled at their restraints. Uncomfortably, Marin made his way around the far side of the room, collected the notes, and left: the creatures seemed to follow his movement, angling towards hims as he passed. Closing the door and passing the notes to Amara, she translated: they were indeed undead augmented by the crystal, giving them more golem-like traits and fiercer weapons. A reminder said to 'mark on the receipt how long these kept in storage. Zahira will appreciate longevity, and I have confidence in her own personal longevity,' though there was also a comment about how distasteful the things were. The men dubbed them 'Clanky-zombies', and everyone was unsettled by the thought of an army of them. Amara placed the notes down: even she couldn't think of a beneficial reason for making these. The final room was illusion: six large mirrors made with the Conjurer's Crystal hung on the walls. Unwilling to look into or be reflected by the mirrors, Marin fell to his stomach and shimmied along the floor, keeping to the foot of space between the floor and the edge of the frames. Collecting the notes and returning, Amara found a note that groused about how four Illusionists had come and gone and none would agree to pay for the commissioned work; one had stolen the form factor altogether for their own creation, though the writer of the note scoffed that it was inferior. The research notes outlined that these mirrors would reflect and copy people, making physical duplicates that would last several hours. Kormon and Marin immediately considered the military application of these and frowned. With all of the labelled rooms investigated, all that remained was the imposing set of doors that loomed over the rest of the hall. Category:Emerald Spire